1. Field
Embodiments relate to a robot, which makes a gesture.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to advances in robotic engineering, robots are increasingly communicating with humans. Various techniques for nonverbal communication between robots and humans have been developed.
One example of such nonverbal communication is a gesture. The gesture means the motion of a body or a hand, which is used to provide added effect to a conversation. In this way, a robot expresses feelings and state of mind.
However, a general robot has a structure including various links and joints, and thus has limited ability to gesture. That is, since the robot uses links and joints, the number of parts of the robot is increased and the structure of the robot is complicated. Thereby, the production cost of the robot is increased. Further, if the robot makes a gesture through the links and the joints, the gesture does not appear natural and smooth. Motions of the robot are not smoothly connected, thus detracting from the aesthetics of the robot.
Therefore, a robot, which flexibly makes a gesture with a simple structure has been required. Emotions expressed by such a robot may be smooth and provide a favorable impression to humans.